Bordon's foul on Zhou Yi earned Dortmund a free kick, but they failed to capitalize on it. Neuer didn't even need to jump, simply looking up as the ball sailed high over the crossbar.

As derby rivals, they never missed an opportunity to show their disdain through various means.

The game continued. Due to the frequent physical contact between the two sides, the referee, Gräfe, had to constantly blow his whistle to halt play and maintain control.

Marcel Reif was quite dissatisfied with this: "At the very beginning of the match, Schalke 04 displayed a very aggressive style, but Gräfe was unwilling to issue even a single yellow card, leading to Schalke 04 becoming even more unscrupulous. As the situation worsened, he still refused to show any cards. This is, in effect, a form of leniency towards Schalke 04! But thinking about it, it's normal. If we check Gräfe's refereeing statistics, in his previous eighty-five Bundesliga matches, the home team's average yellow card rate is 1.66, while the away team's is 1.89. The home team's average red card rate is 0.11, while the away team's is 0.14. From these statistics, it can be seen that he is relatively lenient towards the home team. Therefore, teams playing at home like him. In fact, in the matches he referees, the home team is more likely to win. In eighty-five matches, the home team has won thirty-five times, while the away team has only won twenty-two times..."

While Marcel Reif was listing Gräfe's statistics, the match was being constantly interrupted by the sound of the whistle.

Yang Muge was sitting in the stands, surrounded by his teammates from the Schalke 04 youth team. Most of them were focused on the field, closely following the changes in the game.

Only Yang Muge was slightly distracted.

If it weren't a Revierderby, it wouldn't be considered a good match. But because of the derby name, even if it wasn't aesthetically pleasing, it still made people's hearts surge. When would he be able to participate in this match himself, instead of being just a spectator?

He wondered how he would face Zhou Yi if he were in the game.

Yang Muge felt that he probably wouldn't use such a crude way to defend. That wasn't his defensive style.

He would block Zhou Yi's passing routes, forcing him to dribble the ball himself.

This was something that Yang Muge was good at. He excelled at predicting and intercepting in defense.

In that case, the game wouldn't be interrupted so frequently, and Schalke 04 might not be at a disadvantage.

Draxler, who was next to Yang Muge, was a typical Schalke 04 supporter. Unlike Yang Muge, who didn't know much about or have much affection for Schalke 04 before, he closely followed the situation on the field and was constantly surprised by the ups and downs of the game.

"Ah!"

"Oh! Be careful!"

"Damn Dortmund!"

"Bastard! That ball didn't even go in!"

"Tackle him, tackle him!" While shouting this, Draxler secretly glanced at Yang Muge, because the "him" he was referring to was Dortmund's number twenty-three, Zhou Yi.

However, Yang Muge was fantasizing about himself wearing the Schalke 04 jersey and competing against Zhou Yi on the field, so he didn't notice what Draxler was shouting.

Schalke 04 player Ivan Rakitić did indeed slide tackle Zhou Yi to the ground.

The referee's whistle blew.

At the same time, a piercing and deafening booing sound rang out from the stands of the Veltins-Arena.

The booing finally pulled Yang Muge back from his daydreaming.

When he came back to his senses, he saw Zhou Yi on the ground, next to Ivan Rakitić, who was sitting on the ground, raising his hands, with an innocent expression. Needless to say, he knew what had happened.

"Uh, I think Zhou Yi was faking it..." Draxler quickly defended his team.

However, Yang Muge didn't refute Draxler, because he wasn't sure if Zhou Yi was really faking it.

Hadn't He Ying told Zhou Yi to fake a fall if necessary when they were chatting in their group the other day?

From the beginning of the game, Zhou Yi had been the focus of Schalke 04's attention. As soon as he got the ball, Schalke 04 players would immediately pounce on him, using their physical advantage to knock him down or bump into him. Looking at the current color of Zhou Yi's yellow Dortmund jersey, one could tell that he had fallen and rolled around a lot.

So, when being physically overwhelmed by the opponent so frequently, it was hard to say whether Zhou Yi would think that faking a fall was a necessary means to protect himself.

Yang Muge didn't think it was bad for Zhou Yi to fake a fall. He wasn't concerned about such moral issues. He only cared about Zhou Yi's body and hoped that Zhou Yi wouldn't be injured as a result.

For him, the most perfect result of this game would be for Schalke 04 to win, but for Zhou Yi to perform well and not be injured, and to finish the derby safely.

However, after watching the game for so long, he already felt that his idea was probably difficult to achieve…

※※※

Rakitić received a yellow card for the tackle.

Marcel Reif said in a slightly sarcastic tone: "Thank goodness, Gräfe is finally willing to take the yellow card out of his pocket and show it to people, otherwise I would have really thought he was a miser!"

"Finally willing to take out a card? But this time he's wrong again, it should be a red card!" Klopp gestured for a card from the sidelines, shouting.

Fourth official Trautmann came up to remind Klopp again to stand back in his area.

Klopp vented his dissatisfaction at Trautmann: "Shouldn't that be a red card? That was a flying tackle from the side!"

"The specific penalty is the responsibility of the referee on duty, Mr. Klopp. Please step back, you've crossed the line," Trautmann replied.

Klopp knew that this fourth official was just a robot who could only give mechanical answers, and also a robot who would report him in the match report, so he had no choice but to turn around and return to the coaching bench in anger.

※※※

When Zhou Yi was tackled, he rolled several times on the ground before stopping, which scared Li Cuiyun in front of the TV so much that her face turned pale. She gripped her husband's hand tightly, causing her husband to grit his teeth in pain and gasp: "What are you doing!"

"Look how hard he fell, he rolled so many times!" Li Cuiyun pointed to the TV and said to her husband.

"That's cushioning the force! Can you calm down a bit? Watching a football game is like watching a horror movie. Are you trying to strangle me to death!" Zhou Jianliang said dissatisfied.

"Aren't you worried about our son!"

"What am I worried about? This is common in football games, okay?" Zhou Jianliang hated his wife's nagging about football the most. He had argued with his wife a lot about his son playing football when he was young. Later, as he got older and his children grew up, they stopped arguing.

"Is it common to kick people flying? That's why I say football is barbaric..." Li Cuiyun snorted.

"Football is a man's sport! What's wrong with getting a little injured?" Zhou Jianliang retorted. "If you can't even endure this little bit of hardship, what future can you have?"

"It's not like you can only have a future by playing football..."

"Do you think you'll suffer fewer injuries doing other things? You might suffer more and deeper injuries than in football!"

Zhou Jianliang's words left Li Cuiyun speechless. She thought of the office politics in her work unit and had to admit that her husband's words made some sense. Doing anything, if you want to stand out, want to have a future, want to succeed, you probably can't do it without paying a price...

It's just that the price of football is too direct and bloody, and it's shown to everyone so realistically and undisguised through live TV, which is a bit of a shock... Li Cuiyun couldn't accept it.

※※※

This time, Zhou Yi lay on the ground for a while before getting up.

Being tackled by Rakitić was indeed a bit rough. If he hadn't been smart enough to roll a few times to dissipate the force, it would have been even worse.

Seeing that Zhou Yi rested on the ground for a while before getting up, Magath smiled slightly from the sidelines.

He felt that his tactics were gradually approaching success.

When Zhou Yi realized that he would face endless collisions in this game, his mentality would collapse.

No one wants to stay on the field and be knocked down again and again.

The reason why he didn't arrange for someone to specifically mark Zhou Yi was because if this strategy was only used by one person, that person would probably be sent off in the first half.

Now, by spreading the risk of getting a card to the whole team, the risk was much smaller.

The game had been going on for almost half an hour, and they had only received the first yellow card, which he was very satisfied with.

After Zhou Yi was taken down, he would come and deal with Sahin. When both cores were unable to play a role, Dortmund would not be far from death.

※※※

In the first half, because of Schalke 04's strong performance in defense, it was difficult for Zhou Yi to perform, and Sahin also didn't have any dazzling performances. Although he wanted to help Zhou Yi share the burden, such as using long passes to directly bypass Zhou Yi to launch an attack, his left foot also had difficulty kicking accurate long passes under the opponent's double-teaming defense.

Dortmund was at a disadvantage on the field, and it was already due to the outstanding performance of goalkeeper Ziegler, who was replacing Weidenfeller, that they had not conceded a goal.

When the referee blew the whistle to end the first half, many people were surprised that the first half had ended.

If they were to recall this first half, apart from the constant whistles and boos, it was probably the Dortmund players, especially that number twenty-three Zhou Yi, falling to the ground again and again, which was simply a microcosm of the first half.

At the end of the first half, when the players from both sides went off the field, the TV broadcast also gave a close-up shot of Zhou Yi, especially Zhou Yi's jersey, which was covered in patches of green and black, all covered in dirt and grass clippings.

The dirty jersey showed how many times Zhou Yi had fallen.

"In the first half, Zhou Yi was the focus of Schalke 04's attention, and he had almost no decent performance. I think this is something that both Zhou Yi and Klopp need to solve during the halftime break..." Marcel Reif said, looking at the shot.